Why a website needs looking after
A website is software, and software rots. The platform it runs on releases updates. The plugins that power the booking form and the gallery release updates. The hosting company changes its servers. Browsers change how they render things. Each of these is small, and each is a chance for something to quietly stop working: a form that no longer sends, a page that breaks on a new phone, a security hole that a bot finds before you do.
A care plan is somebody's job to keep up with all of that. Not yours, because you have a business to run, and not nobody's, because that is how sites end up as the inherited wrecks we get asked to rescue.
What a good plan does every month
The list is not long, but every item on it is the kind of thing that only matters when it has been skipped.
Updates, applied safely. Core software and plugins are updated. The word that matters is "safely": updates should be applied to a staging copy first, checked, and then pushed live, so an update that breaks something never takes your live site down. A plan that clicks "update all" on the live site is a plan that will eventually cost you a weekend.
Backups, daily, and tested. A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a backup. A good plan takes a copy every day, stores it somewhere other than the hosting account, and periodically proves it can be restored.
Uptime monitoring. Something pings the site every few minutes and alerts a human when it does not answer. You should never learn your site is down from a customer.
Security scanning. Regular scans for malware, known vulnerabilities in installed plugins, and suspicious file changes. Plus the unglamorous work of removing plugins that are abandoned by their authors.
A monthly note. One short email saying what was updated, what was fixed, and anything you need to decide. If a plan produces no evidence of work, assume there was none.
Included time for small changes. A new price, a new staff member, a seasonal banner. Most plans include an hour or a few hours a month for this, so changes get made rather than queued.
What a good plan does not include
Care plans are for keeping a site working. They are not for building new things, and a plan that blurs that line is either overcharging or overpromising.
New pages, redesigns, new booking systems and campaign landing pages are projects. They should be quoted as projects, with a fixed price, and the care plan should say so plainly. If your included hours run out every month, the honest advice is usually to move up a plan, not to buy extra hours at a rate you did not agree to.
Hosting and your domain should not be inside the plan either. You should pay for those directly, in your own name. A plan that bundles them is holding your address as leverage.
The lock-in test
The single most important question about any care plan is: what happens if I leave?
The right answer is that nothing needs to be handed over, because you already hold everything. The domain is in your registrar account. The hosting is in your name. You have the admin logins. Cancelling the plan means the work stops, and nothing else. If the answer involves a handover fee, an export, or a wait, the plan is a cage.
We build it that way on purpose, and we say so on the care plan page. A care plan you cannot leave is not a care plan.
What it should cost
Prices vary by what is included and how fast the response is. Broadly:
- Around $100 a month buys updates, daily backups, uptime monitoring, a monthly note, and about an hour of changes. This is right for a small site that mostly needs to keep working.
- Around $250 a month adds security scanning and cleanup, speed monitoring, a few hours of changes, and a stated response time. This is right for a business whose website takes bookings and whose bookings are revenue.
- Around $500 a month adds priority response for emergencies, more hours, and checks on the booking flow and search health. This is for businesses where a bad hour costs real money.
Below the first band, be suspicious; nobody can test restores and apply staged updates for $30 a month. Above the third, you should be getting something specific for it, like a service-level agreement or a named engineer.
Care plans for a site somebody else built
Most care-plan clients arrive this way, and it is fine. The honest approach is a paid look first: how was the site built, what is out of date, what is fragile, and whether a care plan would be maintenance or firefighting. Sometimes the answer is that a few things need fixing before a plan makes sense. You should be told that before you sign up, not discover it in month three.
What to ask before you sign
Five questions, all of which should have short answers:
- Are updates applied to a staging copy first?
- Where do backups go, and when did you last restore one?
- What is the response time, in hours, and is it written down?
- What happens to my domain, hosting and logins if I cancel?
- What counts as a small change, and what happens when the included time runs out?
If the answers are clear, you have found a care plan. If they are vague, you have found a subscription.